The present application claims priority on provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/562,912, to PADIN, filed on Apr. 19, 2004, entitled “COMPACT, RUGGED COMPUTER SYSTEM FOR VEHICLE APPLICATIONS”, the contents of which are incorporated by reference herein.
The present invention generally relates to the field of mechanical devices designed to protect any electronic components or assemblies and disk drives from vibration, high G-shock or thermally adverse environments found inside moving vehicles. More specifically, the present invention will permit and allow normal operation in situations and conditions for which electronic elements and disk drives were not designed to properly operate.
There is a constant search to use electronic components designed for use in office or home environments, in more rugged environments such as in vehicles or any other mobile application, while avoiding damage that would by caused by the more rugged environments. Past attempts for supporting electronic elements and disk drives have not addressed all of the conditions that exist in these rugged environments. All of the conditions must be met to assure the proper functioning of electronic elements and disk drives inside vehicles.
A computer system is composed of several electronic components and assemblies. The electronic components and assemblies could be electronic assemblies, PCI cards, power supplies, routers, GPS receivers/transceivers, storage mediums, CD ROM and/or DVD ROM devices or any other appropriate electric or electro-mechanical device used in any mobile application. The storage medium could be a hard disk or floppy disk drive, CD ROM, DVD ROM, or any solid-state memory device. The most common storage medium used today is the hard disk or floppy disk drive. A disk drive is a device used to store and retrieve data from magnetic disk(s) spinning at high speeds. The hard disk drive system is composed of highly precision parts. The hard disk drive systems available today are designed to operate in office-like or home environments. The office-like environment is predominantly characterized by being non-vibrating and the temperature is maintained with heating and air-conditioning.
Electronic elements and disk drives must be protected from natural vibrations due to road conditions encountered inside vehicles. They also must be able to withstand high-impact shocks that occur when a vehicle is in an accident. Vehicle accidents need to be addressed, not as a frequent, but as likely occurrences. Additionally, another major disadvantage that can be associated with prior designs is volume constraints. Prior designs have addressed practical solutions with large volume enclosures that can meet some of the dynamic, spatial and thermal conditions encountered inside moving vehicles. A need therefore exists for a device, which permits current off-the-shelf electronic components and assemblies, standard drives, or any delicate device, to operate and meet all requirements under the hostile environments mentioned above, yet maintaining low volume requirements in vehicles.